SWITCH-PSC is gaining momentum in the first meeting of all National Focal points and project partners

After 8 months of intensive preparatory work and assessment the SWITCH-Asia Policy Support Component organized a technical workshop and the first meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the project in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, back-to-back with the 10th Asia Pacific Roundtable on SCP.

The objectives of this meeting were:

• Review the findings of the assessment on capacity building and policy needs on SCP,
• Identify themes for capacity building at the regional and/or sub-regional level
• Identify policy priorities on SCP at the regional, sub-regional and country level

A total of 45 participants representing 15 countries, EU headquarters and delegations, SCP experts and UN organisations participated in a 2-days productive discussion that fine-tuned the design of capacity building and policy support activities of the SWITCH-PSC over the next 3 years.

The overwhelming participation of high level policy makers from 15 SWITCH eligible countries and the intense brainstorming and dialogue (it should be noted that the workshop included mainly brainstorming and consultation sessions rather than sessions with power point presentations) revealed that the SWITCH-Asia PSC has gained a big momentum among governments and that the preparatory work of the first year is implemented in a successful way.

The workshop revealed that there is ample evidence for the abundance of national policies, laws, regulations and programmes to support SCP in Asia. One important aspect of policy analysis is the effectiveness of policy implementation especially for State and local level. There are a number of critical success factors for policy implementation that have been identified and include the following:

• It is of advantage if there is a single responsible authority for coordinating SCP activities in a country to avoid confusion, duplication efforts, conflicting activities, and inertia.
• The two main functions of the coordinating authority are to show leadership and capacity for decision making, in order to reduce complexity, and to help build linkages among all actors that need to be involved.
• Human capital and the knowledge transfer of SCP issues and policies to State and local authorities as well as city governments are crucial for successful implementation at these levels of government. 
•  If incentives are set in way to favor SCP it becomes easier and more likely to achieve good outcomes at all levels. Since businesses depend on the local context for their day-to-day business activities it is most important that national policy setting drive State and local practice.
• For society at large it will be crucial have champions of SCP among community leaders and decision makers who promote innovative technologies for SCP and sustainable lifestyles.

The workshop agenda and related Annexes can be downloaded from this web page while the full edited minutes of the workshop will be available for download after the countries will make their comments. 

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